Last (1992 - ed.) winter during the Georgian-Abkhaz talks in Moscow, a representative of Abkhazia lost hie temper and said: "I don't want to think, I want to fight!" During the "meat-grinding" in Sukhumi others were fighting and perishing - Abkhazians, Georgians, Russians, Armenians, Chechens..." And at that moment the "militant representative" was staying in Moscow...

At five o'clock in the morning, September 16, Abkhazians began an unexpected offensive at the 15km area from the Kodori river to village Tamuish. Georgians had just withdrawn their equipment to Ochamchire, the other end of Abkhazia. Thus, Sukhumi appeared in a ring, and more correctly in a rectangle 25km long and 5km wide.

On September 21, an Abkhaz boat shot down a plane from Sochi, landing in Babushera airport. It is impossible to watch the chronicle shot by TV-operators. A black line connected the sky and the land for several seconds. The explosion deformed dead bodies and clothes in the water. There were about thirty peaceful citizens in the plane.

Next day, when Georgian commanders had hardly raised the restrictions for flights, when several thousand refugees were waiting for their flight having vague hope, when they began to put first wounded to TU-134 standing on the path, another plane landed in Babushera. Landed just to blaze and cover half the horrison with fire, and again because of the Abkhaz missile sent after it.

For a week Abkhaz boeviks had been constantly destroying their own capital. Famous palm-trees of Sukhumi were falling down, cut with the shells. Burnt TV-centre standing on the hill above the town was periodically changing hands.

On September 27 the streets became green with the ribbons of the Abkhaz Army, and streams of wine mixed with blood flew down the streets. The tragedy of Sukhumi was such, that some Abkhazians confessed: "I have been waiting for this day for a long time, but I could never have thought it would be so terrible".

Nevertheless single shootings and bursts were heard in the ards. A seventeen-year old boy was killed at the entrance of the house, only because he was coming with his friends who had kept arms at home. The friends were shot too, naturally. A young woman was killed "so that she would not deliver Georgians!" An old man applying to the consciousness of the soldiers, was cut down by a machine-gun burst. These were only "accidental", non-planned victims. Others were chased specially, according to the list on ethnic purge. In the evening of September 27 the town could have been returned without any arms: alcohol and drugs weakened the winners. And in the morning Abkhaz surnames began to appear on the gates of Georgian houses over the contemptuous inscriptions "gogi..."

Refugees were still trying to break through from 'the seized region. By the moment when Sukhumi was seized, up to 25 thousands of them gathered in Agudzera, the suburb of Sukhumi. These people who had one already escaped from Sukhumi, were made suffer hasty preparations and nights in the port. They had believed the assurance of Abkhazians, supported with Russian guarantees.

Let them blame me of being non-patriotic, but the only thing a Russian citizen must feel after the recent events in Abkhazia is shame for their own country. Nobody feels confused that in the nearest future words "warrantor", "peacekeeper", "Russian soldier" may become foul language spread in Georgia. Our country promised to be the warrant of peace and security in Abkhazia. Well, quite logically: Great Russia united forever, so it must be responsible for ' the consequences. But we are responsible in a strange way. The first day when the Agreement signed in Sochi was infringed, Russian DM Pavel Grachev assured once again that the aggressor would be punished. But already on September 17 he practically took his words back and said that Russia had been only the mediator at the talks, but not the warrant of peace.

Two days before Sukhumi was attacked (by the way it was recorded in the protocols of the Joint Commission), the observers found Abkhaz unit "Grad" quite ready for battle in Shroma village; 30 machine-gunners were guarding it. Theoretically it had to be destroyed immediately. However, Russain representatives did not even insist on its withdrawing, the Georgian side informs.

In a strange way the breech-blocks, recorded as taken away and kept by the Russian Army got into the hands of Abkhazians on the eve of the storm, while the Georgian side had been asking of our landing troops to return their equipment for two days.

Georgian soldiers and officers more then once told me, a Russian citizen, "If only Abkhazians had fought against us, everything would have been much eaiser But we shan't manage the war with Russia" And these words are not at all idle talk Resident of Tjumen Alexander Gundenn, taken war prisoner, had an application on entering the Armed Forces of Abkhaz Republic and a certificate of a volunteer Another war prisoner, former soldier of the Russian Forces told a touching story how he had been suggested to "change" the off-regulation relations in the army for a "serious men's business" in sunny Abkhazia

In the middle of August our television showed a series of reporting about the withdrawn Kabardinians, Ossetians, Inguish and representatives of other republics of the Confederation of people of the Caucasus from Abkhazia It is wonderful that they were withdrawn

But, first of all, at the beginning of the offensive almost all of them returned, and second, does Russian Law envisage any punishment and responsibility of the citizens of Russia for non-sanctioned participation in the battle actions at the territory of another state⁹ Anyway they are citizens of Russia and taking part in such actions (no matter which side they support), they discredit it By the way, during the first days of the siege of Sukhumi, Pavel Grachev returned from there and said that if Russia brought its peacekeeping forces to Abkhazia, Russian mothers would curse him If we consider his words not as the attempt to avoid the responsibility for everything that was happening there, but as a reconsideration of the principle of the presence of Russian Forces in the former republics, it could be welcomed But in any case, Pavel Sergeevich was a little late with such good intentions our soldiers spent a year at the military airdrome in Gudauta, at the base in Eshera, at the landing battalion in Sukhumi Several soldiers of this battalion were wounded and killed only during the last week of September And the question of withdrawing them from the territory of independent Georgia has not shifted from the dead-point

Probably the curses of these mothers were less loud, and they shed less tears

P. S. While this article has been prepared for publication, a group of Journalists have returned from Sukhumi, they went there only when the town was captured by Abkhazians They have brought nothing basically new, only the scale of the ethnic purge has increased Six thousand dead bodies are burning in the streets of the destroyed town